Semana Numero Cuatro

Hello all,

  It was another great week here at the MTC! I have now been here 24 days and leave for Argentina in 16 on the fifth of October, crazy right?! I am so excited to finally get to Argentina to start teaching and serving the people there even though I don't really now Spanish yet. The Spanish is definitely coming a long very quickly and I feel like I know so much and could get by being fully immersed but I know I will be in for a great shock when I really get there! I have been studying ahead of what we are learning in class because I felt like I wasn't learning much so I would go and try and learn it for myself and then if I had questions when my teacher actually taught the lesson I would figure it out. It has helped a lot and it is showing! We had to do a speaking assessment this week and when I was being evaluated the teacher said that I was progressing faster that most missionaries usually do and that I only had made a few mistakes. I was super excited to hear that but I know it is not because of me! The Lord is blessing me for my hard work and diligence with the language. I hope I can continue to progress at the rate I am progressing at now! This next week I am planning on only using Spanish from the time I wake up to the time I leave class which is at 9:30 Monday through Friday. I know it might sound crazy and is going to be really hard but I know it will help tremendously and it will surprise me how much I actually know! When I first got here I was told that the days will feel like weeks and the weeks will feel like days. I didn't understand that until this week. I can't really explain the feeling but days last forever and then I think about the last time I got to e-mail or take the sacrament and it feels like yesterday, it is crazy! I got my first haircut here and it actually looks really good! I was so nervous to get a haircut because my mom is the only person to ever cut my hair but they did a surprisingly good job but nothing compared to my moms! Another big thing that happened this week was last Sunday. They called a new District Leader so I was done with that but then Elder Lundell and I were called to be the Zone Leaders for our Branch! As Zone Leaders we are given a cell phone that calls only the front desk of the MTC but we have to have it just in case. The last Zone leaders happened to have an alarm on for 6 in the morning which woke us up early and of course I couldn't go back to sleep. I was mad at first but looking back it was funny and all in good fun! It has been such an amazing experiences getting to know the rest of our zone better! I love them all so much! District A in our zone leaves Monday and I have gotten pretty close with some of them so it is going to be hard to see them go but I am very excited for them! It is going to be so hard to say goodbye to our District. We have become like family over these past few weeks and each and every one of them has taught something I needed to learn and I appreciate their examples in my life! AS missionaries in the MTC you have the opportunity to do service twice a week. Our service is Monday and Thursday. It is always in the same building just different jobs. One of the workers in our Monday service building is from Westerville and we were actually born in the exact same hospital which is crazy! He is a huge Buckeye fan and gives me updates every week of the game which is awesome! We shut out Hawaii this week so that is pretty good I guess. O-H! With teaching so many lessons a week and even multiple in a day I have kind of gotten in a pattern of how I teach each lesson. When we were practice teaching with our District we were teaching about the Book of Mormon and after we finished we were getting feedback from the people we taught. A sister in our District went on to explain how We did a good job of teaching and testifying but not really relating how it pertains to us in our lives. We had the opportunity to re-practice and I opened up and shared what I really feel and some personal experiences in my life. She said after how it was perfect and that the spirit was so much stronger! It was a good reminder that we as missionaries teach people, not lessons. Another thing I learned this week is really amazing! The word for Gospel in Spanish is Evangelio. The root of this word is angel. This means that we as missionaries are angels teaching God's Gospel on the world today. We learn more about that in 2nd Nephi chapter 32, read it if you can, it is an amazing chapter! Also read the end of chapter 31. Or just read the whole thing since it is my favorite chapter in the Book of Mormon! Overall it was another great week! Thank you so much to all those of you who have sent me letter, dearelders, packages and/or e-mails! It is so good to hear from all of you! Like Elder Hamilton said in his e-mail this week, it is like Christmas when we get letters here! Anyways, thank you all so much for everything you have done for me and for being such good examples! I love and miss you all and hope everything is going good for you!

Con amor, 

Elder Petersen